Franco-American Relations

The Democrats still campaign on "repairing the damage to international relations" done by the Bush Administration.

That's swell. But doesn't anybody ever notice how many of those fights President Bush won? I guess we lost Aznar on the Iberian peninsula to Socialist appeasers, but how can the media and the Democrats continue to ignore the Atlantist tide of Germany and France? John Fund writes about Sarkozy's new Finance Minister in OpinionJournal's Political Diary:

France is a land famous for its male chauvinism so some eyebrows were lifted this month when new President Nicolas Sarkozy named 51-year-old lawyer Christine Lagarde as the nation's first female finance minister. Indeed, Ms. Lagarde is the first female finance minister of any G7 country.

She is also a clear signal that Mr. Sarkozy intends to pursue a path of economic liberalization despite his party's somewhat disappointing showing in parliamentary elections this month. Ms. Lagarde was a tigress in championing French exports in her previous job as trade minister, but she also has strong free-market views.

She also is well acquainted with America. In 1999, the antitrust lawyer was made the first female chairman of the Chicago-based international law firm Baker & McKenzie and lived in Chicago for several years. She professes strong admiration for America and a belief that the two countries can enjoy warmer official relations.

This is not to say that Ms. Lagarde isn't quintessentially French in many ways. During a recent visit to the Wall Street Journal, she expressed skepticism that French consumers would ever buy frozen American chicken imports (sacre bleu!) and that trade barriers against them were therefore of not much consequence. Nonetheless, look for her to be a breath of fresh air in the normally musty French political climate. Last year, she was ranked the 30th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes magazine. And that was before she was named Finance Minister. I have no doubt that she and our Secretary of State Condi Rice will have a lot more than frozen chicken to talk about when they meet.

Vive la France!

Posted by jk at June 26, 2007 12:49 PM